Mizzou Mail

Tiger pride in Afghanistan

Mizzou Alumni Association member Heather Bush Rosciszewski, BSN '97, is scheduled to finish her deployment to Afghanistan in September 2007.

I would like to submit this photo of me deployed to Bagram, Afghanistan. I'm a nurse in the Air Force and I wanted to show my MIZZOU pride while here.

As you can see, I have my black and gold pom-pom and MIZZOU magazine.

Capt. Heather Bush Rosciszewski, BSN '97
Bagram, Afghanistan

Web exclusive: The knothole gang

During the Great Depression, little boys saw the game by hook or by crook

When I was a youngster in the 1930s, the University’s football program gave “knothole” tickets to local grade school students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades. We got in to see Missouri games for 10 cents and sat as close as possible in any vacant seat we could find. The first game I recall seeing was in 1932. Texas beat Missouri 63-0 [actual score: 31-0]. I continued seeing games this way through the sixth grade.

It wasn't quite as bad as Miller remembers: The Tigers lost the 1932 game to Texas 31–0, according to that year's Savitar, which noted that "the Tigers passed through their most disastrous football season in years." Photo courtesy of the Savitar.

Starting in seventh grade, I continued to go to the games but had to find another way to get in. My friends and I would go to the stadium around 9 a.m. as preparations were under way. At 11 a.m., they closed the gates and ushered out people who were not there in some official capacity. Sometimes we managed to find a way to stay in the stadium after the gates were closed. Other times when we didn’t have money to buy a ticket, we climbed over or under the fence or through a storm drain.

If all else failed, we watched the game from the hill south of the stadium where there were always a number of fans watching. Many fans climbed into the trees to get a better view of the game. On some Saturdays we would march with the band from the Red Campus.

When Missouri won a football game, there would be a “shirttail parade” through downtown Columbia. University students held the shoulder or shirttail of the person in front of them and paraded in and out of all the stores yelling “Mizzou who! Mizzou who!” There would be several hundred University students snaking their way all over the central business district this way. As a high school junior and senior in 1938 and 1939, I would join the end of the parade line. Many high school students joined the show crowd. I think the last shirttail parade may have been in 1941. After the parades, the Missouri and Hall theaters would have free shows for students at midnight.

After I returned to Columbia in 1946 from service in Europe during WW II, my wife and had season tickets for 59 of the next 60 years.

Robert Miller, BS CiE ’50
Jefferson City, Mo.

Lucky No. 7

I just read in the summer issue your letter about Joyce Lake, BS '59, M Ed '63, who turned 70 on 7-7-07. I also read in the spring issue about the couple planning to be married on 7-7-07. I graduated in June 1971 and was pregnant at the time with my first child. He was born at Boone Hospital Center on 7-7-71 at 7:17 a.m. Needless to say, seven is his favorite number to this day.

JoAnn Wilson Anson Piehl, BSN '71
Chandler, Ariz.

Longing for Hermann, Mo.

I thoroughly enjoyed your story about the newly re-emerging wine industry in Missouri, especially the role that Hermann has played ["Grape Expectations," Summer 2007]. I was born in 1931 and spent my boyhood there during the Great Depression and into World War II before moving to St. Louis. As children, we learned of the role Hermann played in the wine business of an earlier time. As a student at the German School at Fourth and Schiller, we took several trips to the Stone Hill Winery's cellars, which were converted to growing mushrooms after the Volstead Act was passed in 1919.

Years later, after four years in the service and after graduating from MU in 1957 with a degree in journalism (advertising major), I moved to California to begin my advertising career with Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne (now known only as BBDO Inc.). I have lived here now for some 50 years and am about to celebrate my 51st wedding anniversary with my college sweetheart, Barbara Patty.

During all these years, Hermann was never far from my mind. And to my surprise, I had the opportunity a couple years ago to meet Jim Dierberg (mentioned prominently in your summer issue). He was in my new hometown of Westlake Village near Los Angeles to mark the recent opening of a new branch office of First Bank, which he and his family own. I knew he owned the Hermannhof Winery in Hermann, but he also told me of his vineyards located in the Santa Ynez valley in Santa Barbara County. It is beautiful country with many hundreds of acres of vineyards. The valley also is populated with small farms and horse ranches. There is the town of Los Olivos with its art galleries, the Danish town of Solvang with its windmills and the little town of Santa Ynez with its false-front Western buildings.

But with all this only a 90-minute drive from my home, my heart still longs for Hermann.

Harold "Hal" Ballmann, BJ '57
Westlake Village, Calif.

What about sustainable design?

As a Mizzou alumna, college instructor of sustainable design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and landscape architect by profession, I was elated to see an issue focused on environmental and sustainability topics. However, I was quite distressed while reading the article on your campus building projects ["Extreme Makeover," Summer 2007] with absolutely no mention of green design, LEED-certified buildings, energy efficient design or zero emissions. [LEED is the national standard for environmentally sustainable development.] I hope the University is thinking into the future as to how these buildings will function, decrease their use of fossil fuels along with future operating costs, and make healthy places for future students to live and study.

With the school's myriad research facilities and an exceptional engineering college, these buildings should be on the forefront of sustainable design. I know there are several architecture and design firms in Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis with expertise in this field. Just three years ago, Columbia hosted the first ever "Greening the Heartland" conference. I hope your memory is not so short lived to have forgotten its message.

Nadine Anne Bopp, BA '75
Chicago

Editor's note: The policy of Campus Facilities‚ Planning, Design and Construction department is to use sustainability principles as it designs facilities and infrastructure projects as much as possible, while taking into account budget and customers' priorities. The guidelines call for responsible use of resources in LEED categories: air, water, soil, energy and materials. Although MU does not have a LEED-certified building, the department strives to design to LEED-certified standards. For more information, visit the campus facilities master plan.